The First Kiss After Heartbreak
by chi-of-ink
Summary: Katara waves goodbye. Zuko does not. -one shot, Zuko x Aang-


Zuko's hands were white and rough, hot at the fingertips, broad - _familiar_. He'd felt the prince's scarred fingers many times over when he was being hunted, carrying him in that flickering state of unconsciousness. Trying ropes around his wrists and ankles, those familiar hands had drawn binds all around him in coiling loops.

He wanted to find a common ground with the tortured prince, but it was hard to linger on Zuko's pale smile when there was already such a whirlwind around him, a twisting gallery of the people he wanted to put first.

Nothing ever went the way he thought it would. For most of his life, in those shorter moments when he was actually awake and aware, the changes had hit him in a great shock, like a powerful wave punching hard into his gut. And with the momentum of it, he'd keep moving, absorbing in another shock, sinking in during the times when he had to catch his breath, because everything dips into the impossible at some point.

He still had a smile, and no matter how much he grew he couldn't ever entirely leave behind the youthful lightness inside him. But what cut in the deepest was the slower things, that softer things, the ideas that set into place slowly and then spanned out in spider-web roots within him so that when they were finally lost, it felt like all his insides had been torn out with it.

The biggest of those things, the deepest and most intricate web of roots to be torn away, had been Katara.

He never viewed her as a beautiful impossibility - she was his friend and his companion, she was full of flaws and mistakes and newness, and she seemed to dig her fingers into his heart and tug it along with her the further their journey progressed.

His stomach felt heavy and his throat locked up when his affection shone and she paused before answering him. His blood felt hot whenever she was in danger, and then cold right after when the pain stayed in her eyes. And it wasn't long before he felt like he'd do anything to pull her closer, to get her hands to stay there against his heart instead of just lingering and drifting away.

It felt like a movie, a play in which some part of him kept pressing and hoping and saying _of course, of course they had to be together_. That was the way these stories went. Danger, change, risk, and maybe not a happy ever after in the sense of a solid ending, but a happily ever after with her. Feeling her hand in his. That was the way things were supposed to be. That was what his heart believed in.

He was still young. Katara was still young. And just because it was meant to be didn't mean it would stay. He knew that when Sokka lost Yue, he knew that when he first returned home and saw the ruins, the splashes of hard scarlet color where old fire nation helmets were scattered.

The Avatar was a reincarnated thing, born again and again, and each time a new life came forward, a new person, a new existence. That alone was enough to prove a broken heart could mend, a lost connection could move on and reach out for rebirth. But when Katara hesitated, when she was scared, when she gently tried to let him down, to get her feet on solid ground...well...

He understood that Avatar was said to mean loneliness. He remembered his old home and his old people and how the bringing of his title had immediately started tearing him away. He remembered being lonely...but gods this one _hurt, _it hurt so much when she watched him go and all the uncertain love in her eyes kept shifting and changing until he couldn't see it anymore through the blurry sky, thick with raindrops and gray light. He wanted to keep her, but it was just too hard. She didn't belong in the sky, and she was still so young.

Living with Zuko had a bit of a novocain-tinged edge to it. It was unfamiliar and exciting and so, so dizzying. Zuko was changing just as much as he was, even if it was in entirely different ways. He could see it in his face, the softening in his eyes, the sharp edges to his smile that demanded and cling on and drew him in...like those spiderweb roots, drawing him in and tightening around his pulse.

A chapter of his life seemed to have filed away, a definite realization that he was growing older and wiser and stronger, even if he knew the part of him that had been torn out when Katara waved goodbye was still fragile and healing slowly. He knew things were different when people were finding families and settling down and going through routine, and he was traveling the world and still changing, still finding things to make his face light up even if the edges still stung where the smile was unfamiliar.

Zuko traveled with him sometimes, and soon 'sometimes' turned to 'most of the time' as the lighter air that followed the Avatar spread to the prince, hooking him in by the sight of friendly faces that accompanied their travels.

Zuko's hands were warm; there was a fire inside. He let his fingertips linger (like Katara, that fleeting touch) and he could feel it there, glowing against his skin.

It was an unfamiliar glow, and he hated himself for that tightening in his throat, that coldness that stung behind his eyes, because now it was _familiar, _Zuko's awkwardly offered comfort. They knew each other from the clashes, the changes, the intersections - but this, this wasn't supposed to happen. He wanted Katara wiping the tears off his face, not anyone else.

But Zuko's hands were so _warm_, the knuckles that brushed his cheek in the first caress seemed to singe in it's wake. The Avatar didn't want to sink into a touch like that yet. It wasn't supposed to be like this: they were to share a brotherly hug, they were to smile and congratulate each other in a celebrate of safety and Katara, _no, Katara was not with him_, just Zuko and the raw burn of his hand and his arms when they encircled him.

Nothing ever happened like he thought it would. Zuko sitting with him in the dense mist following rainstorms, fingers entwined, not cool and dreamy under a tent like he imagined with her - why was he staying here? Zuko looked confused as he gazed at him, his eyes gold and cloudy.

They were alone together. Alone, because that was the way fate liked to make souls like theirs.

Alone.

He smiled, taking comfort by that feeling of youth that still surfaced. His smile grew at Zuko's bothered look, rolling his golden eyes, pressing their fingers tightly together (stop making that face, he says), the sort of scared feeling that wonders '_what if this doesn't last?' my chest still hurts where she used to be_, and it doesn't matter because the future is never secure, and Zuko hugs him close until it burns to be in that tight grip.

His kiss burns, too.

But he presses into it because it's there, it's real. His body feels hot because he's not used to fire, he's used to water, wishing for water, dreaming of water. He doesn't need warmth because that should come naturally with a kiss, but it's so hot here and he's not sure why he's swearing to himself that he'd never leave if only this feeling could stay.

That warm touch, and even hours later he still feels the heat in him where fingers had reached in and clasped around his heartbeat (_spider-web roots, _he thinks_, he can feel them start to spread_). The prince looks just as lost as he does, but for some reason their fingers never unravel from their grasp, and he's willing to stay still when the heat fills him up again, golden eyes and white skin and broad hands hugging his shoulders. Hands that used to jerk him close and bind him tightly in the past, carry him away like a prize or a sacrifice and then never reach their destination.

Katara lingered and drifted and never stayed close, because they were so young, so scared of what that meant. Everything seemed to slip through his fingers like sand, like he was truly made of air. But when Zuko leaned in again, the Avatar stayed still and let the next touch swallow him up.

Because in this kiss, so rough and new and different, there was no hesitation, no lingering and disappearing. no curse of barbed youth to cut in and bleed fresh.

Nothing ever went the way he thought it would.

But Aang gave in and closed his eyes and prayed with all his might that this new warmth would keep him.


End file.
